Frankfurt show: Aston Martin to debut V12 Zagato

UPDATED: 29/08/2011 BRITISH luxury sportscar brand Aston Martin will show two examples of its limited-edition, race-bred V12 Zagato coupe at the Frankfurt motor show on September 13 alongside its “largest display of contemporary Aston Martins ever seen at a motor show”.

It will be the first outing at a “mainstream” event of the V12 Vantage-based Zagato, which is the fruit of a collaboration with the Italian design house Zagato.

The car was first seen at the Villa D’Este Concours classic car event near Italy’s Lake Como in May, where it took the Design Award gong for the concept and prototype category and was met with “extremely positive” customer reaction.

The model was then confirmed for production in July after placing fourth in racing form at the 39th Nürburgring 24 Hour endurance race in June, where 230 laps – amounting to almost 6000km of track time – secured the car’s engineering sign-off.

Aston Martin’s Asia Pacific marketing and communications manager Marcel Fabris told GoAuto the company is “working with a number of parties with regards to the V12 Zagato in Australia and New Zealand”.

Exclusivity and future classic status will be assured, with Aston planning to hand-build just 150 of the cars in the northern summer at its high-tech Gaydon facility in Warwickshire, England.

The audience will be further limited by sky-high UK pricing starting from a staggering £330,000 ($A513,140) plus taxes, guaranteeing it will top the $506,091 DBS Volante as Aston’s most expensive model in Australia.

Mr Fabris did not reveal Australian pricing, but pointed out that the current strength of the Australian dollar “makes for a great opportunity to capitalise and purchase goods from the UK”.

“The next stage of the sales process is for each interested party to view the V12 Zagato in the flesh at our Gaydon headquarters in England, and to review specifications and options,” he said.

Under the hand-crafted aluminium and carbon-fibre body – featuring a trademark Zagato double-bubble roof – is the same 380kW/570Nm 6.0-litre V12 that powers the Vantage and DBS and will punch the exclusive coupe from rest to 100km/h in an official estimate of 4.2 seconds, on the way to a top speed of 305km/h.

The two Zagatos taking to the stand at Frankfurt are affectionately known as Zig and Zag by Aston’s factory race team.

Zig was built from the ground up as an endurance racer but has been repainted in Steel Green livery for Frankfurt and retains the full aerodynamic package including front splitter plus large rear diffuser and spoiler combination.

Zag is the original show-car that was subsequently converted to full racing specification but has now returned to its original show-car specification to be “more representative of the exclusive road car”, although it retains its racing interior.

The V12 Zagato was originally conceived as a 50th anniversary celebration of the iconic DB4GT Zagato. Aston Martin chief executive Dr Ulrich Bez said it represents “the perfect inspiration for the next 50 years of Aston Martin”.

Several other members of Aston’s line-up will also be on the stand, including the $A4 million One-77 flagship plus the recently-launched Virage and Vantage S.